As with everything, the concept of valuing homes has now gone internet with websites popping up that advertise their services to provide you with the value of your home based upon past sale prices within the geographical area, trends, this factor times that factor divided by a unknown factor point, blah blah blah.  You get the idea — and to this new trend of services, all I can say to this is Buyer BEWARE.  After looking around my neighborhood, and the neighborhoods of friends and relatives, I see a trend to over-price the values of the properties not just a little bit — but thousands and thousands of dollars.  If I were to sell my house in this very flat and somewhat sludgy market, and put it on for the more than $12,000 extra one of the sites told me I should, the property would more than likely never sell.  In my sister-in-law’ s neighborhood in Burbank, the site put a value on her home that was more then $75k higher than the one she was given just last month when it was placed on the market. 

Certainly, these service sites may have a good concept and purpose – and maybe they will improve in providing accurate information — eventually.  However, in the meantime, my advice to you is to find a local service provider who knows the intimacies associated with your location.  Selling a house in a fickle market is hard enough on its own, doing it with bad information as to asking price is just stupid.  It may cost a bit more to use someone local, but in the long run, it could cost you a whole lot less.